Thusis was not mentioned between us. He didn't say "buck up, old chap," or "go in and win," or any insincere thing of that sort, for I felt that he believed my case to be hopeless.
Presently he returned to his room and closed the door. And I sat down at my table and produced pen and paper with a view to further poetry—my only form of relief from grief.
But rhymes evaded me; and finally I gave it up and rested my head on both hands, unhappy, unsatisfied, feeling that I was a failure, and always had been one.
After all what could such a glorious young thing as Thusis see in an interior decorator from New York?—a profession into which had minced all the lady-like young men and lisping sissies in Manhattan!
Perhaps, after all, the profession was all right, but the people who practiced it were weird and incompetent. And as for me I was perfectly aware that I had no taste, no color sense, no glimmering idea of composition.
Doubtless my artistic and financial success had been due to my utter incapacity.
I proceeded to masticate the cud of bitterness.
I had been masticating longer than I realized for the light in the room was already growing less when a knock came at my door; and I shoved my unuttered verses into the drawer and grunted out, "Come in!"
It was Thusis, transfigured, sparkling, mischievous, audacious. And she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
Her magnificent ruddy hair, unloosened, framed her face, its upcurled, burnished ends falling to her waist.